By John Corrado

Paramount Pictures has just released the first teaser trailer for Better Man, which played at TIFF and Telluride. Directed by Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman), this is a musical biopic of British pop star Robbie Williams, that portrays him as a realistic, CGI monkey. Yes, you read that right.

I was curious how they were going to advertise this one, as the monkey conceit was largely kept hidden when the film played at TIFF. But it’s front and centre in the film, so it’s no surprise that this is the main focal point of the teaser (set to the high-energy Williams song “Let Me Entertain You”) to get audiences used to the idea. It’s a bold choice, but having seen the film, it actually works surprisingly well.

Out of all the movies I saw at TIFF, this is actually one of the ones that I keep thinking about. Yes, the film itself sort of feels like your standard biopic. But it has a pretty audacious choice at the centre of it with the whole monkey thing, and I appreciated how it offers an unvarnished and surprisingly moving look at the darker elements of Williams’ life (you can read my full review from TIFF here).

The film opens in limited release on December 25th, before expanding on January 17th. The full teaser and a featurette are below, please feel free to comment your thoughts once you have watched them!